I'm in proccess of buying a computer and I wanted to layout my build infront of you and get some feedback and answers, thanks in advance for any help provided =) This desktop is primerly for gaming. This is what I was thinking about: Case: COOLERMASTER Cavalier 1 (350W PSU) w/ Window - Silver -- This case seems pretty nice. Good looking, tower system and includes a power supplier. My thoughts about him are wether the fans are strong enough and how's the power supplier? [costs 165$] CPU:AMD Athlon 64 (3500+) VENICE - 512 Cache [939 PIN]- RETAIL -- This is what seemed right, I can get the 3200 for 45$ cheaper, are they worth the upgrade? [costs 318$] Motherboard: ASUS A8N-SLI Premium (nForce4 SLI) - ATX -- How is that for a motherboard? I was thinking, maybe it's too much for what I really need? I can get either: ASUS A8N-E - 939 (nForce4 Ultra) - ATX [85$ cheaper] OR ASUS A8N-SLI - 939 (nForce4) - ATX [22$ cheaper]. [costs 248$] Video Card: GIGABYTE Radeon X800XL 256MB - VIVO / DVI - PCX - RETAIL -- {I can get Bulk for 7$ cheaper} This is what I chose, it seems pretty neat. Anything better for the same price-range? [costs 430$] RAM: 2x512MB Samsung DDR PC3200/400 - Samsung Original -- Any comments? [costs 70$ ea,x2 140$] HardDrive: WD 160GB-8MB JS - 7200RPM S-ATA II -- There's an option to add either "PRIMECOOLER HARD DISK DRIVE WAVE FAN" or "PRIMECOOLER Double fan SUPER HARD DISK DRIVE COOLER" (ofcourse I can also get none, the first one costs about 8$ and second is 11$). Are those needed? It's a pretty low cost, but I'm not sure about how quite they are and how effective they are, need some notes for this please. [costs 117$] Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Live 7.1 - 24 BIT - RETAIL -- This one seems like a legitimate choice. It's good enough and even great for gaming/hearing music and rather cheap. [costs 44$] Speakers: Genius SW-J2.1 330 - 2.1 - They seem okay and they have a good price. [costs 41$] Burner: LG CD-RW 52X32X52 - Oem -- Any comments on LG's burners? [costs 35$] DVD Drive: LG DVD-ROM drive X16 - BULK -- Comments? Screen: BenQ LCD 17" - FP71G+ - 8ms - Ultra Fast - Silver -- Seems like a good choice, any comments on BenQ's screens? [costs 365$] Keyboard: Genius KB-16E PS2 ENG/HEB - PS2 -- Anyone ever had any bad experience with a Genius keyboard? ^^ I onno, rough buttons or w/e. [costs 20$] What's the difference between "Bulk" and "Retail"? It's written near some products and I failed to surely understand what that means. I know they prices probably seems outragous to you ;P it's because I'm from Israel. Thanks alot for any thoughts
Well ALMOST everythings will go together very nice but - For the RAM get some OCZ or Corsair modules. If your primarily into gaming upgrade the X800XL to a X800XT or something of equivelence. Considering the sound card your getting is 7.1 channel i'd consider getting 5.1 or 7.1 speakers instead of the 2.1. LG burners are more of a 'bang for buck' product but have served me well in the past, but something more reliable consider a Plextor or SONY burner. And last of all i'm guessing BULK is just excess stock! Any other questions be sure to post them
Thanks for the help. You're saying I'm better off with a sony/plextor burners rather than the LG's? How about the CD-Rom? Ah, I think I'll remove that sound card and use the on-motherboard card, it's probably enough for me.. About that videocard, I think I'll swap that for a nvidia one, I'm not yet sure which. (cause radeons arent compatible with SLI)
crossfire is using two different nvidia cards? ack ack.. that means I will have to wait for new motherboards that have the crossfire abillity? these motherboards won't work it?
no crossfire is ATI's Graphics card setup, you can use either 2 of the same card or 2 different ones, nVidias technology is SLI, you need 2 identical cards for that
Get a better power supply. While that CoolerMaster may have one of their own power supplies in it, there's really no power supply (well maybe by PC Power & Cooling...maybe) that's sufficient for an Athlon 64 or LGA775 Pentium build. The detailed thread about power supplies is in my signature, but quickly: wattage doesn't mean a whole lot. Buy something by Enermax, Sparkle or Fortron, Antec, OCZ or Tagan of at least 450-500W and that has a combined amperage of 25 amps or better across the 12V rails. This information will be listed on the power supply's sticker. If you're thinking of going SLI, the power supply link has the link of nVidia SLI certified units. About the cheapest one is the Enermax EG565P-VE, and can be had for around $80-100 depending on where you look on-line. I love mine, btw. If you're not going for SLI, the A8N-E is fine, but if you want SLI, the A8N-SLI is what you need to have if you'll stick with Asus. Actually, the A8N-SLI is probably the most mature SLI motherboard out there, so that's a very good bet for you. For optical drives, Lite-On and Samsung make great inexpensive burners. Another good brand is Pioneer, but they're a little more expensive than the other two. RAM-wise, I pretty much agree, but I'll also plug Patriot RAM. Corsair's XMS stuff is pretty affordable, like the Patriot +XBL stuff and some of OCZ's RAM (depends on which sticks you get). You'll pay a little extra depending on which modules you look at, but you'll be getting some known tweakable RAM--if that's what you want. This isn't to say the Samsung is bad---they make some of the best RAM chips on the market, but you may find it worth it to purchase the premium RAM. Generally, CRT's are still better for gaming that flat panels. I hear Dell makes some nice ones, but the better ones still aren't cheap. You can snag a 19" flat screen for under $200 if you look around a little. Unless you have piss-poor airflow through your case, you're probably not going to end up finding those hard drive coolers to be all that great. Bulk (also applies to OEM labels) is simply saying you get the product and the very basics to get it going. No fancy box, just a plain white or brown cardboard one and the drivers. You may get some cables, but that's it. The retail box comes with a nice display box, a manual, more accessories (what you get depends on the particular product). There's also typically a longer warranty (30-90 days vs 1-3 years for Bulk/OEM vs Retail).
I have one of those hard drives coolers, not the exact same one but a Akasa one, it has 2 noisy 50mm fans in it and although it cools my HDD by 10*C by blowing air directly onto it its too loud for my liking. I'd rather just get an 80mm fan and try and mount that at the front (i cant on my case so i'm going to attempt to mount it under the HDD somewhere to do the same job as the HDD cooler whilst being quieter, you could try that using some sticks of dowl/plastic and a hot melt glue gun)
I have no clue what you're talking about with the memories. I haven't seen any XMS memory sticks or +XBL, and also no clue what's Patriot =/ (OCZ is a company aight?) Also, people told me I rather get an Abit mortherboard than a Asus one. ?
Corsair's higher-end memory is the XMS line. Patriot is a newer company on the market, and their +XBL stuff is in a similar class to Corsair's XMS. The +XBL happens to use the best RAM chips that Samsung makes while not costing a fortune. OCZ has various lines, but some of their better stuff can get rather expensive. I'm not saying it's not good stuff, but you don't have to spend $300 on 1GB of RAM anymore. The Abit may be more desireable if you're looking for heavy overclocking. That's if you're getting the AN8 SLI. The AN8 Ultra seems to be a piece of junk right now, but that could be due to an immature set of BIOS releases.
Do I need ATX2 or ATX for power supply? sUnshine X-Blade (8511) - BLACK - 480w, will this case psu do? there's also a 530w one of the same
You should have a power supply with a native 24-pin ATX connector. I'm not sure if that's what the ATX2 is referring to or not. By native 24-pin, I mean there is not a 20-pin ATX connector from the power supply and a 20->24-pin adapter in use. As for that power supply, I've never heard of that brand before, so I'd be cautious. It may be a very good brand, but I've not seen any reviews on that brand or heard any user feedback over the web anywhere. Recommended units: -Fortron BlueStorm 500 -Enermax EG565P-VE FMA 2.0 -Tagan 480W -OCZ PowerStream 520 -Antec NeoPower 480 Those are all units that will run from $80-120 depending on where you look on-line. These are all known to be solid power supplies and are recommended. If you want a black power supply, the Antec NeoPower 480 has a black chassis and is known to be a pretty good unit. Now you may want to go cheap on the power supply, but if you want to cut costs, the power supply is a very poor choice to go cheap on. I'm not saying to spend $300 on a power supply from PC Power & Cooling, but I am saying that you'll want to get a unit that's guts are able to stand up. I'm only recommending parts that I've found to be solid or have enough evidence from reading around that they're solid units. I won't recommend something I don't have knowledge on.
Yeah I have the Tagan TG480-U01 unit (480W) and its awesome, go with a trusted named brand, you wont regret it.
It doesn't say that the NeoPower 480 supports SLI. and it's pretty expensive =// about 135$, other ones I can see being sold here are even more expensive.. Isn't this one Antec TRUE430 ATX12V -BULK good enough? but again, neither got SLI confirmed on antec's web or SLi's.
http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_build.html#certified_powersupplies Thats a list of Certified PSU's, others have PCI-e connectors for SLI cards (my PSU does) but their not a certified PSU that nvidia says is good enough, honestly thouygh with the quality of some of these PSU's get a certified one, just to be safe.
Very few certified ones. Big B recommended the neopower for SLi, and it aint certified, non-certified ones can also work with it? NeoPower is the only one I can get in a "reasonable" price.. and even quite high, im considering just getting non-SLi with a 6800/x800 and be done with it, gets me 200$ cheaper and even more. Is this card good enough: GIGABYTE GeForce 6800GT 256mb DDR3 - PCX - Retail ?
For some reason I completely blanked about the SLI part. The cheapest SLI certified power supplies are the Enermax EG565P-VE or the Sunbeam unit that's on the certified SLI power supply list. You may very well get by with that 430W unit, but if you're spending the money for an SLI rig, you really should make sure the power supply is certified.
